Abstract
Moneygram Company was founded in 1940. Initially, the company was named Traveler's Express Company.
In 1998, it acquired Moneygram Payment systems Inc (a company specialized in transfers of money) and then changed its name to Money gram International Inc in 2003. This acquisition was probably the most significant in the company's history but definitely not the only one. The growth strategy relies on external growth in addition to organic growth meaning that the company expands its activities mostly through acquisitions. Other important acquisitions the company made include ACH Commerce in April 2005 (an automated clearing house payment processor) and Money Express SrL in 2006 (an Italian financial services company).All these operations enabled the company to grow rapidly and become one of the leading actors in the field of financial services. The company's services are provided through a network of financial agents located all around the world. However, the current focus of the company is to expand its activities in Europe, it had to review its distribution model in order to comply with European financial and legal regulation (for instance, a 2005 European directive on financial services requires any operator in this sector to take some measures in terms of management, cash-flows…). It therefore relies on locally owned retail stores in Europe to distribute its products, in addition to their traditional agent model.
